After a lively smiley-faced, if somewhat disjointed opening ceremony, the tournament’s first boring trivial facts began to squirm their way out of the lushly-laid turf. Turf which, incidentally, is supplied by the Sports Turf Research Institute in Bingley, who are also responsible for England’s training pitches- but not the unforgivably poor surface at Wembley, oddly enough. Anyway, the two key factoids prior to this game were; a host nation had never before lost the opening game of a World Cup and Mexico had never won their first game at all previous World Cups. Could history be made, so early into the tournament? Well, no actually. A draw meant it was ‘as you were’.
There’s some good eye-catching kits knocking about at this World Cup; very tasteful, very smart and designed with one eye on the simplicity of kits of a certain vintage. A big pat on the back to the FIFA official who decided that referees could wear any colour, paving the way for stylish all-black kits like Mexico’s change strip.

A knife in the back would be more apt treatment for the genius who thought those bleedin’ vuvuzelas would be a good idea. I was irritated by their infernal honking even before kick-off. The sound these stupid plaggy trumpets make is like a biblically-proportioned swarm of wasps hovering above a gridlocked Texan traffic jam, just as the clocking-off hooter sounds at the Klaxon factory and the world’s biggest horn section tunes up for two hours solid.

Also, whenever I hear reference to vuvuzelas, I either think of Uwe Seeler, the dumpy German slap-head (pictured) whose goal helped dump England out of Mexico ’70 or ‘Zazu’ by Rosie Vela (no relation to young Carlos of Arsenal and Mexico), the sole album by the American model who had a 1986 hit with this cracking Steely Dan-produced synth-pop gem… but then that’s just how my mind processes things. Those vuvuzelas are incredibly irritating on the ears, especially for dogs. Don’t annoy them on purpose or they’ll get their own back on you:

The World Cup’s opening game is usually a cagey ol’ stinker but this one had its moments. Some early endeavour from the Mexicans, and more accurate heading of the ball when left unmarked in the box, should’ve seen them go in at half-time a couple of goals up, despite a late fillip for Bafana Bafana just before the break. What about that goal though, eh? Fabulous measured build-up, a skilfully weighted through-ball and an incredible top-corner finish that, with how sweetly it was struck, served as a good advert for these apparently wayward flyaway adidas balls. Take a bow, Siphiwe Tshabalala. In fact, take two… one for your fantastic goal and one for your even more fantastic name. Until I saw it spelt out, ‘Shabba-lalla’ sounded like the kind of nonsense name a casual racist might lazily come up with in reference to a generic dodgy foreigner. It had me thinking of ‘caca lala’, a term meaning ‘shit or ‘baba’ that we used to use as infants or the sophisto-faux Leeds suburb of Chapel Allerton or its Noo Yawk-inspired nickname, Chapel Apple. Y’know…Tshabalala… Shabba-lalla… Shabble Allerton… Chapel Apple.
Anyway, his cracking opening goal was later cancelled out by Rafael Marquez’s mis-hit but inevitable equaliser, the naïve South African defence having left him and 2 of his fellow gringos completely unmarked. The Mexican skipper had earlier taken a wayward pop at goal from a free-kick. A centre-half on free kick duty? Is that a Captain’s privilege or is it assumed that, because he plays for Barcelona, he must have magic in his boots?
A big shame the hosts couldn’t hold on but it was a fair result, Mexico having the better and more frequent chances.
One final point: the Mexicans may have been in all-black but, it’s interesting to note the South African team is now all-black, no white representation, as with the cricket and rugby union sides. Do wealthier white kids in South Africa get discouraged from playing football now? It’s nice to assume so and pretend football is still the all-embracing sport even the most underprivileged street urchin can take up and engage in. Ugh! I’m coming over all Sepp Blatter now.
The France Uruguay game promised much but delivered on precisely zero counts. It was nice to see another nod to the ’82 World Cup in Spain, with France’s away kit sporting pinstripes, like their classic kit from that era did. Other than that, there was nothing else easy on the eye in this aimless thrill-bereft yawnfest. It was nice to hear the phrase ‘Japanese referee’, however. Two words you rarely see together, round our way anyway.
The spectacle was made worse by us having to watch Gabby Logan’s half-time England camp report twice, due to some old skool technical difficulties. Watching this game, and how shoddily France huffed and puffed, reminded me how a team of wonderfully talented players can easily be rendered woefully ineffective by a well-orgainised spoilsport defence and how this is the kind of performance we should realistically expect from England against the States. Shocking stuff from the French but a decent result for the South Americans. Especially with 10 men and from a country with just over 3 million inhabitants compared to the 62 million humourless shoulder-shrugging grumps currently residing in France.
Anyway, here’s Rosie Vela to take us up to the news…